


I Would Know My Shadow and My Light

by whatthedubbs



Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Ethari is maybe having problems coping, F/M, M/M, Runaan is healing and loves his husband a lot, and do things about it, inspired by yet more music written by gay composers, it's pretty obvious that gay elf dads find each other v attractive, non-explicit sexual references, with some of the things he feels about Viren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedubbs/pseuds/whatthedubbs
Summary: I would know my shadow and my light,So shall I at last be whole.Then courage, brother, dare the grave passage.Here is no final grieving, but an abiding hope.The moving waters renew the earth.  It is spring.--Ethari has always been content to leave fighting to others.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Runaan/Tinker | Necklace Elf (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560703
Comments: 13
Kudos: 183





	I Would Know My Shadow and My Light

_I would know my shadow and my light,_   
_So shall I at last be whole._

* * *

Ethari has always been content to leave fighting to others.

A good quality, for a crafter, his old master had once told him. All things retain something of their maker within them. What better quality for the blades of an assassin to possess than compassion? Lives must end, but those endings need not be cold and bitter, he had said.

Ethari believes his master was right. Has taken that truth into himself and shaped his own craft around it. His husband’s blade-bow was forged while he still felt the charged energy of their first meeting sparking low in his belly. His heart-brother’s best spear was cast in the elation of his daughter’s birth. His heart-sister’s in the tender buoyancy after her wedding.

He has never felt the urge to raise a hand in anger at another being before.

He hates it. 

And still, he _longs_ to take the man who has done this to his husband and dash his head open on his anvil.

That the man in question fell to his death from the top of the Storm Spire does little to dull the jagged edges of the anger and grief that have taken up residence beneath his breastbone. Far less than feeling the warmth of his husband’s restored body beside him in their bed. Runaan’s relieved kisses and the incredulous joy that is oh-so-beautiful in his eyes do far more to ease him than than the death of the man who tortured and imprisoned him so.

And yet still it is not enough to completely soothe the feeling of shattered glass tearing into him with every breath. His heart-sister and brother help smooth over the edges a little more; his daughter (their daughter) and her young human companion round out some of the worst remaining points.

The pieces of his heart he thought lost forever have been returned to him; safe if not yet altogether whole. Their queen is ready to end the war that has tainted all their lives with its stains and scars. The lost dragon prince is returned in good health and high spirits. The magnitude of the gifts he’s been given fills his breast with reckless hope and makes the power of the moon _sing_ beneath his skin.

And yet there remains within him still the last shards of his impotent _anger_. 

It rears up within him whenever he sees his husband flinch away from the bowl in his workshop where he keeps a few spare coins to make change for customers. Whenever his husband’s wedding band comes loose from his now-broken horn. When Lain and Tiadrin go pale and distant in the middle of a conversation; re-living silently some part of the torture they endured at the hands of the dark mage.

Ethari has never been within a hundred miles of this Lord Viren, and yet it feels as if the man has struck at the root of him all the same. Struck him a wound that will not close, only _fester_.

Ethari goes to their most sacred of groves to meditate under the pure light of the full moon and pray for his heart to be healed. Runaan joins him each time, eyes so full of understanding and grief at his husband’s pain that it takes his breath away. 

Ethari surrounds himself with family; sister and brother and husband and sometimes their daughter and her human prince (the way they look to each other makes him _ache_ that he could not be there to see them fall into each other’s orbits). He forges new blades from the gratitude he feels for their return.

Ethari does and feels all of these things, and still he carries his unwelcome passenger within him.

* * *

_Then courage, brother, dare the grave passage._

_Here is no final grieving, but an abiding hope._

* * *

Runaan finds himself almost wishing that he could bring Lord Viren back so he could drive his blades through the _creature’s_ heart and throat.

Only almost, because the thought of having to share the same plane of existence with his torturer even for the few moments it would take for him to die once more fills him with revulsion. 

He holds his husband tight to his chest as he cries under the gentle light of the moon.

(His husband, who loves and feels so deeply that even the righteous anger he feels toward the man who sought to destroy them all is a bleeding wound upon his heart. Runaan thinks there is much he would give to bear that burden for his beloved).

He has said as much before. On nights such as this one; where his beloved kneels in the pale beams of the moon and begs her for a way to let go of the last of his anger. Has knelt beside his husband and offered himself up as a vessel to take on what weighs on Ethari’s heart. Has held his husband in his arms every night since his release and willed the tangled knot to pass to himself so he can guard against it. 

Now he tucks Ethari’s head beneath his chin, runs his cheek along the smooth and familiar curve of his horns; enfolds him in his arms and pulls him close enough that if they were bare Ethari would be able to feel the beat of his heart through his skin.

“This shall pass, Ethari,” he murmurs into the soft strands of white hair under his lips. “It will fade. No anger is a match for your kind heart. How many souls have passed on peacefully by the power of your compassion alone? My hands may have loosed them from their bodies, but your blades have guided their spirits back from the dark paths. Even after everything, I only need the lightest touch upon your work _feel_ your desire for them to be healed.” He presses a kiss to his husband’s forehead, hoping that at least some of these words help. “His hatred tried to lay its hands upon you, and it is _failing.”_

A soft sound, a minute easing of tense shoulders and back. Runaan sighs in relief and leans against the tree at his back. Above them the moon shines on, her energies tugging at the energies under his skin, settling them into their proper place as he holds his husband close. They have done this many times over the years, lain together to let the moon realign their energies to each other; sometimes quietly, sometimes in the wake of passion and daring exploration.

Tonight he feels the familiar upwelling of irrepressible affection and soul-deep _completion_ that he has felt every night they have spent together under the moon’s gentle touch. He welcomes it, breathes it up beneath his breastbone until it fills his chest. Lets it overflow and hopes that somehow Ethari will be able to feel it wash over him. Pushes _out_ with the things he feels that together are called _love;_ imagining them flowing down his arms and through his hands and binding the seed of darkness that has tried to take root in his beloved with layers of _light_.

“I love you,” he whispers, because visualizing the flow of his emotions may be an excellent method of coping with the things that have happened to him, but it is never _enough_ at times like this one. 

Ethari shifts and tilts his face upwards, eyes shining in the light of the moon (and oh, somehow he is even more beautiful than he was on that first night), and Runaan has to bend down to meet his lips with his own because it is impossible not to. His husband makes a noise in the back of his throat; not quite the same sweet and contented affirmation from before, but getting there. 

* * *

_The moving waters renew the earth. It is spring._

* * *

Strong arms dart out from the overgrown ferns beside the path, encircling his waist and sweeping him off his feet and between their soft leaves. Ethari lets out a surprised yelp as he sprawls out among the fronds, only to be met with a quiet laugh and soft lips pressed against his temple as Runaan slides into his field of view; the elusive rakish grin that no one ever believes oh-so-stoic Runaan capable of spread across his lips.

His husband is dressed in the simple tunic and leathers he wears for hunting, and Ethari wonders absently if _he_ has been Runaan’s quarry this whole time. It _has_ been a long time since they played this particular game; so long that in truth Ethari had forgotten how _playful_ it makes his husband. Looking up at his face now, Ethari does not think he will ever forget it again. 

_Here_ is where the child his husband never truly got to be shines through.

He laughs as Runaan kisses the tip of his nose, clever fingers already working at the clasp at his collar. He has _not_ forgotten how the thrill of the hunt makes the blood flow hot in his husband’s veins (and oh, how _indescribably adorably awkward_ he had been when Rayla had been but a wee child and lead him on wild and merry chases every night before claiming her favorite spot on the bed between the two of them). The memory pries something loose in his chest and he relaxes back into the warm circle of Runaan’s arms and laughs more at the tickle of his lips brushing under the line of his jaw. 

“Runaan!”

A soft chuckle rises in his husband’s throat and Ethari savors the way it sends a jolt of excited energy running down his spine. This is a Runaan that no one else sees; the apex predator mixed with the besotted lover. A delicate balance between the two that strikes every once in a very long while and takes Ethari’s breath away. A sign his husband is healing and happy and eager to share it with him. Ethari is so incredibly _relieved_ and _grateful_ that he doesn’t even remember to put in his customary protest about their proximity to the trail when when Runaan shrugs out of his tunic in a smooth motion of shoulders and powerful arms.

Something inside loosens and drifts away at the sight of his husband’s body; whole and healthy and eager. No mark from the binding, no exposed ribs from hunger, Ethari’s bands around the bases of his horns. No far-away troubled look in his eyes today; only hunger and playfulness. Ethari reaches up to touch, hands against soft skin over muscle, pulse beating steady against his fingertips.

He does not notice when the last of the shards crumble to dust and blow away. 

**Author's Note:**

> Today's text comes from Michael Tippet's 'A Child of Our Time,' which is a VERY HEAVY piece about the Kristallnacht. Tippet both wrote the libretto and the music in the early years of the second world war, although it was not performed until 1943-44. It also remains one of the very few choral pieces that I have cried during the performance of. The text here is taken from right at the end.
> 
> Read the text of the whole thing here:  
> http://afinfo.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2019/01/A-child-of-our-time-text.pdf
> 
> And I've found a decent recording of the whole oratorio here (I Would Know My Shadow and My Light is the second from the end):  
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFnCT63riVzZsyRkzfQ22vUKEKH6EzBM9


End file.
